Aztecs hope to silence crowd at Moby

San Diego State guard Chase Tapley fires an outlet pass as he drives between Colorado State's Pierce Hornung, left, and Colton Iverson during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game Saturday Jan. 12, 2013, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Lenny Ignelzi)
— AP

San Diego State guard Chase Tapley fires an outlet pass as he drives between Colorado State's Pierce Hornung, left, and Colton Iverson during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game Saturday Jan. 12, 2013, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Lenny Ignelzi)
/ AP

FORT COLLINS, Colo.  Behind one basket at Colorado State’s Moby Arena is an electronic ram’s head. It is attached to a sound meter, with the horns illuminating as the decibel levels rise and smoke coming out of the ram’s nostrils when they’re completely lit up.

“Our goal when we play there,” San Diego State women’s coach Beth Burns said, “is: Don’t let them smoke the ram.”

The SDSU men won’t have to worry about that tonight (7:15 p.m. PST, CBS Sports Network), when they travel to Moby Arena to face a No. 24 Colorado State team that broke into The Associated Press rankings this week for the first time since 1954. The smoke machine in the ram’s head is broken.

Classify it as an overuse injury.

Hard to imagine that not long ago this place was known as the Moby Morgue, with bouncing balls and squeaking sneakers and screaming coaches being the most prevalent sounds on game nights. Now it’s a tsunami of noise and a graveyard for visiting teams. The Rams have won 26 straight there, the third longest active home win streak in the nation behind Syracuse (37) and South Dakota State (28).

“The other night when we played Wyoming, Moby was as good a venue as I’ve been in,” said first-year CSU coach Larry Eustachy, who spent five years at Iowa State, famed for deafening Hilton Coliseum. “And that’s being in Hilton against Kansas, with the ‘Hilton Magic,’ where the floor is actually vibrating. It was one of those experiences. It was really neat. It was San Diego State, The Pit, it was that type of venue.

“It was special.”

Eustachy knows the secret to winning there. He’s the last guy to do it, coaching Southern Mississippi to a 79-58 victory on Nov. 19, 2011. (If you can’t beat him, hire him.)

SDSU won here the season before, but it took a fadeaway 19-footer by D.J. Gay at the buzzer.

Last year? The Aztecs shot 31.3 percent — their worst in six seasons and 195 games — and lost 77-60, ending a 58-game win streak against opponents unranked in the coaches poll.

“Beat us like a drum,” coach Steve Fisher said.

Moby, certainly, has its idiosyncrasies. The predominant color is a dark green, which serves to absorb light. There are also the ram horns painted on the court, which is a cross between, as Burns said, a Thanksgiving cornucopia and “kind of this follow-the-yellow-brick road.”

The student section, re-branded as “Rams Ruckus” this season, is up to 2,000 strong, which is still about 500 less than Viejas Arena’s “The Show” but proportionately much larger (and louder) in an 8,745-seat venue. The seats rise steeply and are close to the court, which, when full, have the electronic ram’s head snorting smoke so much that it breaks.

There’s also the geography. Fort Collins is at 5,003 feet.

“Any time you’re dealing with these Front Range teams, you’ve got the altitude as a factor,” said Boise State coach Leon Rice, whose team suffered its worst conference loss in two years there, 77-57 on Jan. 30. “Sometimes it’s funny because coaches don’t want to talk about altitude and they want to pretend it is not there, and this and that. But it is a factor.